


Drift

by scribblemyname



Series: Drift AU [1]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Andromeda Fusion AU, Developing Relationship, F/M, First Kiss, First Meeting, Friendship, Hydra, Identity Issues, Rescue, Space AU, Team Bonding, Team Dynamics, scavenging
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-21
Updated: 2015-06-21
Packaged: 2018-04-05 11:33:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4178229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scribblemyname/pseuds/scribblemyname
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And Jemma thought they were just here to scavenge the HYDRA space station for new parts and technology her fingers were itching to crack with her partner, Fitz. "This isn't what I signed up for."</p><p>"Isn't it?" Fitz looked at her with surprise and an expression that saw right through her. "He came to us for <em>you.</em> He asked for Simmons not Fitz, and you know you only work with the biological components."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Drift

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hiddencait](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hiddencait/gifts).



"Okay." The captain brought his hands together as he looked around his gathered team. "Does everyone understand their part in this mission? Feel comfortable with your tools?"—Many of which were provided new for their crew. "Are there any questions?"

"There won't be anyone waiting for us?" Hunter asked, eyeing his force lance.

"Except maybe another scavenger team," Bobbi pointed out with a small shrug.

Hunter looked up, horrified. Skye stifled a smile. Jemma and Fitz exchanged looks.

"Does everybody know their jobs?" May rephrased Coulson's question.

He sighed a little longsufferingly, preferring the gentler approach, but she was probably right to take a harder line before their little pre-mission meeting spun out of control.

Skye saluted jauntily, still stifling that smile. After their near-escape from the Cybertek Drift where their own pilot betrayed them, he was glad to see her at least a little back to her usual self. 

Jemma nodded with a slightly pained expression. Her partner in scientific crime (and legal experimentation and research, she'd been wont to stress when he first brought them on for the last job), Fitz, simply looked up, all readiness. His equipment was… complicated, but May had already checked it over and signed off on the necessity of all of it. They weren't taking any chances with their new hires after the mess that Ward had turned into.

Bobbi and Mack nodded with actual seriousness. Coulson had hired the trio because of Mack's reliability and his own history with Bobbi. She was excellent at her job and sometimes pulled Hartley along with her. This time though, she was dragging along her ex, Hunter, and he wondered if the little team was more work than it was worth.

Trip just grinned. Trip was the other crew member predating the current job.

Trip was their equipment and acquisitions expert, just as Skye was chief computer systems specialist. May had taken over piloting in addition to her duties as first officer and personnel officer without hiring power (which she still griped to Coulson about regularly). Coulson was the captain and responsible for everyone else aboard. He was responsible for this job as well, and he was wondering now if he should have been more open about what it entailed.

"I never promised there wouldn't be anyone waiting for us," Coulson said.

May shot him that longsuffering look she always gave him when she felt he should let her "handle" the crew instead of spilling info they probably didn't need.

The response to his words was electric. Everyone paused pre-mission checks and stared at him, some with more hostility than others (Hunter and Fitz), some with incredulity (Skye, Mack, and Jemma), some with more reserved judgment (Bobbi and Trip).

Coulson smiled. "If all goes well, however, they'll be happy to see us."

* * *

"I thought you said they'd be happy to see us!" Skye yelled as she ducked under another gun blast.

"I said 'if'," Coulson yelled back. "We might have to deprogram him first."

"Deprogram?" Skye mouthed and looked at him, incredulous.

Coulson shrugged. "It's why I pay you the big bucks."

"You get me close to Mr. Cyborg and I'll ram some code through his skull."

* * *

Jemma and Fitz watched on the monitor from the machine shop (it was better than the one in medical). She chewed on her lower lip as she stared through the various comm feeds from their crew.

"So we're here to retrieve him," Fitz summarized.

"I don't think he wants to be retrieved."

Jemma watched the man with the metal arm throw Bobbi across the abandoned space station's command center as though she weighed no more than a rag doll. Being Bobbi, she glared from the ground where he'd tossed her and readied her force lance, visibly reassessing for another shot at him. Coulson was trying to talk the man down, "We're here to help," and reassure him that this was a rescue mission.

And Jemma thought they were just here to scavenge the HYDRA space station for new parts and technology her fingers were itching to crack with her partner, Fitz. "This isn't what I signed up for."

"Isn't it?" Fitz looked at her with surprise and an expression that saw right through her. "He came to us for _you._ He asked for Simmons not Fitz, and you know you only work with the biological components."

"That's not entirely true," she protested.

But this was Fitz. They'd worked together since they'd first gotten through training at the same intergalactic university. He gave her a knowing look and she capitulated.

"I still didn't sign up to take a man against his will." She stared at the monitors again, watched him put his arm through the panel Skye was hiding behind as though it were paper. Skye's eyes went very wide. She was jacked in to the ship's systems through her cerebral neural port but not at all hindered from noticing the weaponized arm beside her.

Fitz countered quietly, "I'm pretty sure we're here because HYDRA already did that. Maybe he didn't used to be their weapon."

And sadly, that was all too likely.

* * *

Bobbi ramped up the electrical charge on her battle staves and rammed both of them into the back of their attacker's neck. Blue electricity ran over him as he jerked, then fell to the ground, unconscious at last.

She stared at him, breathing hard, then shot Coulson a look. "Something you forgot to tell us, Captain?"

Coulson shrugged apologetically. "I guess he wasn't happy to see us."

Bobbi rolled her eyes and went to grab her unconscious ex from where said rescuee had dropped him and haul him back to the Bus.

* * *

When the main scavenging work was done was when the science division's truly began. Jemma directed Mack where to put their rescuee slash very dangerous person and Coulson and Bobbi where to put Hunter.

"Was anyone else injured?" Jemma asked.

But Coulson shook his head. "Nothing serious. I'd like Skye to stay in here and keep an eye on things. If she can get a port into his programming—"

"Or at least hack it." Skye shrugged. "He has a nasty set of anti-hacker tech plugged into whatever's running the software part of his brain. I think it's running from his arm and a brain implant."

"We can disable the arm," Fitz said.

Jemma finished, "Without dismantling it. It must have been awful for him."

"Still is," Fitz added, turning to her. "As far as he knows, he was just captured by the enemy."

"We're not the enemy," Coulson said firmly. "His name is James Buchanan Barnes, known casually as Bucky, and I'm doing this for a friend."

"Okay." Skye looked somewhat dubious but settled in with her padd and a cable for the port at the back of her neck.

Jemma nodded. "Bucky. Right."

Fitz started digging among his tools. "Jemma, I'm going to need you to handle the—"

"Biological part of his arm."

"Yes. And make sure he doesn't get hurt."

"Understood." She moved into position with her own tools.

Coulson looked relieved at the unfolding busyness. "I'll go have May get the bus moving again."

* * *

Hours and hours later, Skye had slumped over asleep on the medical bed near Bucky's, Fitz had passed out in a back-aching position over his worktable, and Jemma was cleaning up after everything. They had disabled his arm, disabled his HYDRA programming ("nasty set of anti-hacker tech" was clearly an understatement), and re-enabled his arm. Despite Coulson's general reassurances on who this guy used to be (a war hero and for the right side too), Fitz and Skye had exchanged looks and put on the heavy-duty android-worthy restraints. Jemma hadn't exactly protested.

She was prepared for when he started to wake up, blinking groggily and lifting his head from the table.

Jemma stared, wide-eyed, medical nano injector ready in her hand to put him back unconscious if this went badly.

He looked…confused. "Who am I?" he asked. "Where am I?" He looked around wildly.

She trusted in the restraints for a moments and moved closer, slowly, so he could track her course with his eyes. "We rescued you from HYDRA. You're Bucky Barnes. You're safe now." She put her hand on his shoulder. "You're safe. I promise."

He collapsed back against the medical table, breathing hard.

Jemma quietly ordered the computer, "Computer, please tell the captain he's awake."

* * *

The ship computer told Coulson, Coulson told May and his 'friend', Captain Rogers of the starship _Avenger_ , who had apparently been scavenging every old HYDRA outpost he could find to try and rescue this friend, and Captain Rogers sent word that he would rendezvous with them at Stark Drift in three days.

"Well, there's that," Jemma told Skye. "I made him some muffins. Do you think he'll like them?"

 _"Him_ being the new guy, right?" Skye didn't even glance up from her computer console where she was hacking away at the HYDRA algorithm that encrypted the station's databanks. Coulson wanted her to mine it for all the information they could get before they blew the place to kingdom come.

Mack and Hunter had both complained about not being allowed to blow it to kingdom come immediately.

Skye reached out and snagged a muffin off of Jemma's plate and bit off a piece.

Jemma waited expectantly.

Skye got a funny look on her face. "Gluten-free?"

"His medical scans showed he was slightly intolerant."

"Slightly?" Skye raised her eyebrows, then shook her head as she swallowed down the last of the bite. "Make him your blueberry muffins. He can stand to cheat once in a while and those are _good."_

"I'll take that as a 'he won't like them.'"

Skye's mouth opened, then worked, then finally she hedged, "I'm sure he'll like them. Beats ration packets."

Jemma groaned and returned to the mess.

* * *

He liked the blueberry muffins, thanking her politely and eating mechanically. He frowned every so often at his metal arm when it whirred and clicked with his every movement.

"Did it get damaged?" Jemma asked, deliberately not mentioning _who_ might have damaged it.

He shrugged, then held it out. "Can you fix it?"

Well, she realized. She probably could. "Let me just get Fitz."

* * *

"He doesn't seem to have retained any of his memories," Jemma explained gently, "before HYDRA weaponized him."

It was, unfortunately, not an unheard of process, and Jemma knew of several 'assets' Coulson or other SHIELD Guard affiliated crews had rescued. Not that she ever expected to participate in such a rescue or to meet someone who had lived a cryogenically extended life for generations.

Captain Rogers sighed deeply and leaned back in the chair in Coulson's ready room. His first officer, Natasha Romanoff, studied him with an interesting but unreadable expression on her face.

"Steve," Natasha said abruptly into the silence. "We might be able to trigger his memories."

He looked up wearily. "That's what they've been trying to do."

"That's not what I—" She shut her mouth, pursed her lips, and cocked her head as she studied him for a long moment. "Clint knew me before he rescued me."

Natasha was… Oh. Jemma suddenly realized that _Natasha_ had once been weaponized.

"They reset me because they felt our association had compromised me," Natasha continued. "It had. He triggered my memory to come back. In pieces. I was never the same, but I came back."

Hope lit in Captain Rogers' eyes. "We could try."

"Certainly," Jemma agreed.

* * *

"I've been giving him books," Mack said, holding up a stack of materials on Bucky Barnes, former war hero of Captain Rogers' Howling Commandos. "He's read most of them." Mack shrugged. "For what it's worth."

Bobbi agreed, but even more blatantly pessimistically. "I think it bothered him, what he was reading. He may not remember _before_ HYDRA, but he hasn't forgotten what happened to him _with_ HYDRA. He doesn't like it."

"That's good, right?" Rogers looked back and forth between them.

Both looked away noncommittally.

Jemma sighed, wishing they'd just man up and say it like it was. "I'll go in there and let him know you're coming." She went into medical before Rogers or anyone else could protest.

She paused inside the door. "Hello."

He looked up from the book he was currently frowning over. His metal arm moved soundlessly as he closed the book and set it aside. They had done good work, and through it, he had come to trust Fitz and Jemma more than anyone else on the ship.

"Captain Rogers is here to see you," she said softly.

She saw the name register in his eyes and face. He glanced at the book. "I don't want to see him."

It made her ache just a little bit, wishing she could make this all better and give him back the self he couldn't find.

"It's Steve," she added, using the name Natasha had.

He looked up sharply, something passing over his face. Finally, he nodded.

She backed out and called Steve in. "He'll see you."

* * *

It didn't go well. They all waited outside, what crew didn't have 'better things to do' as May griped. Skye ribbed Jemma for mother henning. Fitz shamelessly mother henned beside her. Bobbi and Mack stayed on hand, ostensibly so if the whole meeting went south, someone could handle Bucky—though if the legend was to be believed, Jemma figured Steve would be just fine and then some, even against that formidable arm.

Natasha waited with a stoic expression as she read through several of the books Bobbi and Mack had brought out with them.

Finally, Steve emerged with a haggard look on his face and tired eyes.

"Captain Rogers?" Jemma asked.

He shook his head. "He asked if he could stay here."

Natasha looked unsurprised and a little resigned. "Did he remember you?"

"Some," Steve acknowledged. "He said he's not ready to deal with that."

Bobbi nodded, as if she'd expected as much, and drew the unnecessary crew away from the door to medical.

Jemma went back inside while Steve went to talk to Coulson.

* * *

Bucky took over a bunk in the guest suite beside crew dorms. Coulson wasn't usually inclined to give anyone special treatment or their own personal quarters, resources being what they were, but everyone was more comfortable with him having his own space. Nightmares still made him a frightening opponent at night.

"Sleep fighting isn't supposed to be a thing, you know," Hunter commented, half making light and half worried complaining about his new set of bruises. "I was just trying to use the facilities."

"Serves you right for carrying a force lance and leaving the light off," Bobbi ribbed back.

Trip and Skye laughed at Hunter's grumbling expense. May set the ship to automatically turn up the lights when anyone passed through the halls.

"It's an unnecessary expense," Coulson commented.

She looked at him.

He hesitated. "That we can afford."

She smiled.

* * *

Jemma checked in on Bucky after the second night when he'd failed to emerge for dinner in the mess. "I brought you a plate."

He looked puzzled, then took it. "Thank you."

"How are you settling in?" The quarters looked barely occupied, but it's not like he had a lot of his own things yet.

He shrugged, then started to say something. He hesitated for a moment.

She waited, eyebrows raised and listening.

"I want to be called James," he said. It was his own name but without the attached baggage of a history he couldn't really remember and wasn't at all prepared to deal with.

Jemma nodded agreement. "James."

* * *

It broke the ice a bit between James and the rest of the crew to give him a new name and lessons in how they pulled jobs. The crew used to revolve a bit more, but somehow it got a little harder for Coulson to divest himself of unneeded members thereof when all of them had a vested interest in helping James adapt to his newfound freedom.

Skye was intent on training James into being the best hacker in the known worlds. Hunter wanted to learn everything he could about weaponry from James while teaching him everything he didn't need to know about women and drinks.

"You'll ruin him before he even has a chance," Bobbi said and offered James some sparring in the gym. "With battle staves. You try them yet?"

Mack winced on James' behalf when they did go spar and she didn't hold back at all, but was impressed at how hard it was for Bobbi to keep the upper hand with James using every advantage he had, especially that arm.

"I think it's made of adamantium or something indestructible," he muttered. "Impossibly strong."

"Vibranium actually," Fitz corrected. He too was on the sidelines, arms crossed and watching with faint concern. He and James had taken to silently watching each other do things and talking here and there over meals.

Jemma, May, and Skye unabashedly watched for the show.

"It's unfair for anyone to be that hot," Skye muttered.

"Perfectly fair," Jemma answered back. "Trip's that hot."

Skye shot her a betrayed glare. "It's a different kind of hot."

"You like it better," May commented.

"Ugh. You're all terrible." But it's not like Skye could actually _deny_ the charge, so wisely, she didn't. "Bobbi's got to teach me how to do that flip thing."

May rolled her eyes. "I already taught you how to do that."

Skye sat up thoughtfully. "Huh. Was that the trick I never got quite right?"

May nodded with a faint smile.

"Practice makes perfect," Jemma quipped. "You should go ask Trip to spar with you."

"Thanks, Jemma. You should ask James to spar with you."

"Uh." That got Fitz's attention. "That's probably not a good idea."

"Seeing as I'm not even on his combat level," Jemma finished. "Skye."

"Don't 'Skye' me."

"Children," May chided gently.

"She started it." But Skye subsided and they watched until James and Bobbi had tired themselves out.

* * *

The first time she heard James laugh was after they pulled a job in the Chitauri Nebula, scavenging an ancient artifact "powerful enough to melt your brain," in the reassuring words of their fearless Captain Coulson.

"I rather like my brain how it is, thank you," Jemma commented.

"Don't worry," Trip told her. "We have all the protections we need."

Nevertheless, Jemma didn't mind being on the shipboard team rather than packed into an EVA suit and exposed to whatever might be out there. She fretted the whole time her team was.

"They'll be fine," Fitz told her. He'd almost been commandeered for away himself, and she was less than thrilled that James wasn't an almost.

But they were fine when they came back in, and when they fell to post-mission storytelling about trips that really had lived up to the hype, James laughed.

Jemma exchanged surprised looks with Fitz, who proceeded to look very pleased. She smiled to herself and tucked away the memory for later.

* * *

"You need a haircut," she muttered as she plunked a sandwich down in front of James and absently handed Fitz the other. She ran her fingers through James' hair as he looked at her, a little amused and a little surprised.

She realized what she was doing and dropped her hands away, blushing slightly. "I can cut it, if you'd like."

He studied her for a long moment, then grinned in that charming way she'd seen in pictures of who he had once been but hadn't seen in person before. It took her breath away. "Sure thing, doll."

She blushed furiously at the endearment. Fitz stared at the two of them as if he'd never seen them before.

Skye looked ridiculously pleased. "Why, James, are you _flirting_ with her?"

"I need to go check on my samples," Jemma said hastily and excused herself before she could turn redder.

* * *

He was much kinder to her nerves when it came to the actual haircut, sitting still in the chair in front of the sink while she worked quietly around him. There was nothing inappropriate in their touches, nothing lustful in the way he watched her intently without ever looking at anything else. He did that, James. He studied his environment and stayed hyper-alert at all times, a habit left over from his time as an asset.

Nevertheless, it was intimate, the quiet together where the only sound was his breath, hers, and the sound of scissors and hair falling to the ground.

* * *

"It's my father's birthday," Skye informed Coulson a few days later, immediately perking the ears of every curious or gossipy person in range, which when it came down to it was everybody. Secrets had a way of both proliferating and traveling terribly on the Bus. "I need to go to Afterlife Drift if I don't want to be disowned."

Skye was a good hacker. Coulson opened his mouth to protest, then sighed. "Very well. We'll work out a rendezvous."

"But I've never been to Afterlife," Jemma piped up.

"It'd be nice to get some shore leave," Bobbi added.

"And maybe meet Skye's family," Trip added.

Which is when Skye's eyes went heavenward and she mouthed the numbers one through ten.

"What's at Afterlife?" James asked.

Jemma answered expressively, "Science."

"Terrigen crystals," Fitz added. "Which we shouldn't get anywhere near."

"My mother," Skye stated. _"My_ mother. If you come, you do not by any means embarrass me or crash my party."

"I thought it was your father's party," Hunter protested.

"No crashing." She crossed her arms.

Jemma raised her right hand. "I do solemnly swear to come for the science and not crash my friend's father's birthday party."

Skye's guard deflated. "Fine. So."

Coulson said in a decidedly unenthusiastic tone, "Afterlife it is."

* * *

Afterlife was beautiful. Unlike most artificial environments, basically cobbled together space stations with too many people and stale, recycled air, Afterlife was called the Garden Drift sometimes because of how well-kept it was and the real gardens with real oxygen-producing trees, shrubs, and flowers.

"It's so beautiful." Jemma sighed as she lingered at the facsimile of an outdoor market where fruits and vegetables grown on the drift were for sale.

Fitz made a noise of agreement but seemed much more focused on locating the lab they'd come to visit. "I still don't think we should be studying those crystals."

"I'm not actually here for crystals," she told him.

He looked at her.

Jemma shrugged. "They have some of the most advanced psychological studies programs in the known worlds. I'd like to consult about James."

"Does he know that?"

"I won't use his name. I want to know more about the freed HYDRA assets and whether there's anything we can do to restore his memories or at least help his nightmares."

Fitz sighed. Nevertheless, he went with her.

* * *

"It would be helpful if I could actually meet the subject," Lincoln commented about halfway through an intense discussion that involved case history after case history of anyone Afterlife had ever encountered after deprogramming from HYDRA weaponization. "Or do you have their case history with you?"

"I'd like to keep this anonymized," Jemma replied promptly.

Lincoln glanced at Fitz, who gave him the perfectly straight face he'd learned from James. "Well, hopefully what we know can help, but I can't stress enough how individualized recovery is. Every body reacts a little differently to the process, and each program seems to apply slightly different techniques."

"Like the Red Room?"

"Exactly. The Red Room used extensive brainwashing techniques," Lincoln explained, "but other branches used brute memory-suppression with nanotechnology or even just damaging the areas of the brain that handled episodic memory."

Fitz winced. "Brain damage."

Jemma shot him a sympathetic look. Their previous pilot's betrayal had resulted in brain damage Fitz had healed well from, but not without a long recovery period. "The subject does not appear to have brain damage."

"But their memory function is damaged?" Lincoln asked. "That narrows it down a bit."

"Does it?"

Lincoln sighed. "That would be the Zola Program branch. There are serums that accelerate healing function to the highest levels a human body is capable of, assuming it lived in a perfect world with the best oxygen and nutrient absorption rates and everything it needs."

"But if the world isn't perfect…" Fitz began.

"Then where does the body get the resources?" Jemma finished.

"Well, there's the matter of what does the serum actually do." Lincoln shrugged. "As I understand, it targets the efficiency with which the body uses what resources it does have. And you'll find their food and energy needs are high. When they can get it, they require higher amounts of sleep, though they can run for days without sleeping when they can't. But again, every body—"

"—reacts differently." Jemma shook her head and smiled. "So do you know what to do for those ones?"

Lincoln hesitated before finally offering hesitantly, "I have some ideas."

* * *

"Don't you want to remember?" Jemma finally asked James after a half hour of fruitless conversation.

James had taken to pacing in his quarters. She was standing near the door, feeling helpless in the face of his ambivalence.

He shook his head almost violently. "I'm not him. And I _like_ who I am here." He looked at her and it made her catch her breath.

"I like who you are too," she said after a moment. "I just don't think you should have to lose everything."

"Steve isn't lost and Natasha isn't, so that's all that matters." It had come out by now that Natasha and James had crossed paths before.

Jemma looked at him and asked quietly, "That's all that matters to you."

He took a deep breath. "You're not gone." He became very still. "You know what I was. You know I was the Soldier."

"It wasn't your choice," she bit out fiercely. "It wasn't your choice." She wasn't sure what she felt, but it hurt that she couldn't give him back what they had taken.

But he shook his head at her with a gentleness he hadn't had when he first came to them. It was something he'd had to relearn from having people again who cared about him. "But this is my choice now."

She nodded, forced her mouth to form a smile because she agreed with his right to choose, agreed that it was a good thing. That was the whole point of rescuing him in the first place.

But he was still staring at her. "Jemma."

He didn't often call her by name, and she made herself straighten up a little and listen.

"I—" He shook his head again. "You won't leave?"

"Of course, not." She reached out and curled her fingers into his. "I'm not going anywhere. Well, unless Coulson gets sick of hauling around a science crew everywhere he goes."

James huffed and drew her close to kiss her for just one, heart-pounding moment. When he pulled away, she stared at him.

"He won't."

She held on, fingers tracing over metal, and stood on her tiptoes to kiss him again.


End file.
